


you made your bed so lie in it (but it's a couch you bought on craigslist)

by navience



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Friends to Lovers, One Girl Defined Joke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29418252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navience/pseuds/navience
Summary: “I reciprocate your feelings! You were supposed to unreciprocate! I had feelings, and they weren’t reciprocated, but now you’re reciprocating! I didn’t plan for this,” she moans, and Gideon quirks a delicious half-smile that only sends Harrow further into hysteria, because theoretically, if she could take it, that smile would be all hers.If she could take it, she would. She can’t, though. She doesn’t deserve it.“So you do like me?”“Yes,” Harrow says bitterly. “Stay on your side of the couch.”
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 11
Kudos: 105





	you made your bed so lie in it (but it's a couch you bought on craigslist)

**Author's Note:**

> happy valentine's, michaela. i wish you a very shup gool <3 tall sexy woman. kisses

It’s times like these Harrow wonders if it had been the worst thing, sucking up to Ianthe and putting up with her slimy, snakey ways, and having two friends instead of only one. Tragically, past Harrow had not foreseen this kind of upsetting development, although she should have, and present Harrow is left with the consequences of her actions.

Namely, that she and her buff, kind, stupid best friend had been ragingly, rip-roaring drunk, and Gideon had said she liked her, like a lot liked her, and Harrow had kissed her on the cheek, and now they are both dead sober, and she’s not sure which horrible reality she prefers. Possibly, she just prefers being regular old dead in the ground, which she tragically is not.

“Stay on that side,” Harrow says, pointing to the side of the couch she’s not curled up on, designating a barrier between them. She doesn’t know how to cope, so she controls.

“Look, Nonagesimus,” Gideon sayes uncomfortably, crossing her arms. Harrow averts her eyes so as to be upset and confused in a God-honoring way. “I really understand fine, alright? I didn’t mean to say it. It’s fine, I’m no fucking incel. I respect that you’re not into it. I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“I didn’t mean to either,” Harrow says, her lips pursed tightly. “But I really don’t understand. This is a terrible situation.”

“Well, you don’t have to put it like that. Hell, if you’re not uncomfortable with it, we can still be friends. Just give me a few months. You’re not the only girl on campus.” Privately, Gideon herself doesn’t exactly believe this, but she doesn’t mind a little bragging about her campus popularity in the name of peacemaking.

“But that’s the problem!” Harrow bursts. “I reciprocate your feelings! You were supposed to unreciprocate! I had feelings, and they weren’t reciprocated, but now you’re reciprocating! I didn’t plan for this,” she moans, and Gideon quirks a delicious half-smile that only sends Harrow further into hysteria, because theoretically, if she could take it, that smile would be all hers.

If she could take it, she would. She can’t, though. She doesn’t deserve it.

“So you do like me?”

“Yes,” Harrow says bitterly. “Stay on your side of the couch.”

“And I like you.”

“Apparently!”

“So what’s the problem?”

“We can’t— you’re so— you’re too good!” Harrow snaps, and, oh, she hadn’t meant to say that, but she had, and so she barrels on. “I’m all weird, and screwy in places you don’t even know a person could be screwy, and I’m not nearly good enough, so please! Stay on your side!”

“Okay,” Gideon says, her voice deepening, more quiet, and Harrow inhales and exhales slowly. She can feel Gideon shift in her seat. 

“What I meant to say, in that ridiculous jumble, is that it simply wouldn’t be fair to myself or to you for us to enter a relationship without serious consideration on both parts. As friends, we have reached a sort of truce, a pax. As more? That is uncharted territory. I don’t want— I don’t want you to be hurt,” she says, lowering her gaze. “If I am being completely honest, Griddle, I don’t want to be hurt myself, although you could certainly argue I’d deserve it.”

“I know you were raised by several slightly evil nuns, but I didn’t think they’d dug this deep.” 

“Don’t call them that,” Harrow scowls. She glares with what she hopes appears to be bloody hatred at the person she feels, in her most private understanding of her own stupid life, was one of the best things to ever happen to her. 

And yes, Gideon is still sitting there, her gaze soft, and warm, and understanding, and Harrow wants to break. She wants to shatter every wall, every barrier between them, to crawl into Gideon’s lap and press her face into her strong, solid shoulder, and to let herself melt into her embrace like someone to whom physical touch comes naturally, and easily, and without terror beaten into every fiber of her soft skin.

But Harrow is strong, so strong, and she stays on her side of the couch. Her face, she’s well aware, is a mask, her angry face the same as her miserable, wretched, despairing face the same as her resting face. She prays Gideon can’t see through it; she knows Gideon probably will.

“I need you to promise me,” she says shakily. “That you haven’t forgotten. I need to know, in your gorgeous, empty head, that everything I did to you when we were younger— that it’s not gone. That I am still mean, and cold, and difficult to speak to. You can’t— even if it makes you go, even if remembering in full makes you get up off this couch and never speak to me again— that is better than pretending to accept all my flaws and forgetting that the worst things I ever did were the things I did to you.”

“Harrow,” Gideon says seriously, immediately. “Do you really think I could ever forget?”

In the silence that ensues, Harrowhark Nonagesimus feels her heart drop in her chest and shatter into a thousand pieces, each jagged edge pressing into her flesh and slicing open her lungs. Her hands, folded, twitch erratically. She inhales deeply, and then goes still all over, bittersweet calm washing over her. It’s better this way.

“Good,” she says, her syllables crisp and cold. “I’m glad your pea brain didn’t sabotage you this time, Griddle; I’ll see you out.”

“God, Harrowhark, would you just listen to me?” Gideon makes an aborted movement, almost like reaching out, and Harrow freezes, half-standing, half-sitting. “Sit your bony ass down.” Harrow sits. “I remember, and I don’t care. I got more than enough revenge and I got more than enough apology, you sad, scrawny, scary woman. You hurt me, and I hurt you, and I can trust that it won’t happen anymore. I could trust that even before today, in case you were wondering; my feelings come from that trust, not the other way round. I’m honestly embarrassed you think so lowly of me. You have baggage? So what? These guns can carry anything.” She flexes, and Harrow feels herself leaning forward and grimacing and blushing, all at the same time. “If your only worry is that I’m too stupid to know any better than to go after our resident evil genius, then you’d best shove it up your ass, because you’re stuck with me.”

Harrow stares at her, bug-eyed and mute. 

“Any other objections, your ominous honor?” Gideon asks.

“That was the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard, I think,” Harrow says uncomfortably. “I fear I may be outmatched.”

“Of course you are,” Gideon’s smile stretches wide and bright across her face, and Harrow feels her own face reflect it in a pale imitation; the moon, she thinks, must feel this same way about the sun. 

She reaches over the endless expanse of couch and finds herself clinging to Gideon’s hand with both of her own.

“Is this alright?” She asks, looking up at her with wide eyes, black pupils dancing with shiny liquid nerve.

“Yeah,” Gideon answers, rubbing her thick thumb back and forth across the back of Harrow’s hand. “Of course it is, my malignant marchioness. Of course.”


End file.
